Grants totaling $3.6 million go to arts groups in OC, Riverside, San Diego and San Bernardino

The Bowers Museum in Santa Ana and the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach each will receive $400,000 grants from the James Irvine Foundation, while nine other small and mid-size arts organizations in Orange, San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties will get $275,000 to $375,000 under a program aimed at helping them expand their audience and shore up their finances during tough economic times.

The grants, totaling $3.6 million for the 11 groups, will be paid over three years. According to their last available federal tax statements -- all from before the September 2008 meltdown -- the organizations' annual budgets ranged from $550,000 for the Oceanside Museum of Art to more than $5 million each for Bowers and OCMA.

Other museums reaping grants from the San Francisco-based Irvine Foundation are the Laguna Art Museum in Laguna Beach and the Riverside Art Museum. Musical organizations on the list are San Diego's Mainly Mozart and Orchestra Nova San Diego (formerly the San Diego Chamber Orchestra) and the Redlands Community Music Assn. Saint Joseph Ballet of Santa Ana and San Diego's Cygnet Theatre Company also got grants. 

Kirsten Schmidt, spokeswoman for the Orange County Museum of Art, said its plans for the money include improving its website and making more of its collection of contemporary art available online.

-- Mike Boehm

Photo: Bowers Museum. Credit: Karen Tapia / Los Angeles Times

Monster Mash: Daniel Radcliffe looks ahead to Broadway; opposition to Christo project; Van Nuys violinist found dead

-- Nice guy: "Harry Potter's" Daniel Radcliffe is taking tap dancing lessons in hopes of returning to Broadway in a musical.

-- Damage to river?: Christo's art project on Colorado's Arkansas River faces some opposition in the Mile High state.

-- Last seen July 8: Missing Van Nuys violinist Robert Korda, who played with Los Angeles Opera, is found dead Sunday.

-- Stew and crew: Spike Lee's documentary of the Broadway musical "Passing Strange" will hit theaters in August.

-- Big star, small stage: Megan Mullally to star in L.A. theater production of Adam Bock's "The Receptionist."

-- Sold-out tour: Britain's Royal Ballet pirouettes to Cuba.

-- Take it or leave it: Dispute over his conservative architecture views leads Prince Charles to resign from Heritage board.

-- Back on stage: JoBeth Williams to star in Pasadena Playhouse production of Charles Randolph-Wright's "The Night is a Child."

-- Wear brown: Free admission to the Bowers Museum on Wednesday if you dress up like Rembrandt.

-- Set your TiVo: Cast of Broadway's "Hair" to perform on "Tonight Show" with Conan O'Brien. Read "Hair" star Gavin Creel's travel diary today on Culture Monster.

-- Lisa Fung

Follow us on Twitter: @culturemonster

Photo: Daniel Radcliffe is taking tap dancing lessons. Credit: Richard Drew / Associated Press

Free day for Bowers' Rembrandts, if you dress for access

Why is this man frowning?

Apparently, Rembrandt, who engraved this self-portrait in 1630, didn't foresee that the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana would be celebrating his 403rd birthday on Wednesday by offering free admission to anyone who shows up dressed as the birthday boy -- or in any other form of Renaissance period garb.

Those with doublets, tights, plumed hats, flowing gowns, halberts and helmets -- or any other leftover costume from a Shakespearean stage production or the Renaissance Faire -- can pull it out of the trunk and skip the $12 regular admission or the $9 fee for seniors and students.

But those who want to truly dress for the occasion might consider a more raggedy look. The just-opened exhibition at the Bowers -- best known for its cultural history shows of Asian, Oceanic and ancient artifacts -- celebrates the ultimate Dutch master. It's called "Sordid and Sacred: The Beggars in Rembrandt's Etchings."

So cheer up, Mynheer van Rijn.  

Following SoCal art museums on Twitter

Culture Monster was surprised to learn that several Southern California art museums were left off a recently published list that ranks museums around the world by the number of followers each has acquired on Twitter. (Thanks to the folks at @LACMA for pointing out the omissions.)

The survey, which we linked to earlier today, was posted online this month by a museum marketing guru named Jim Richardson. Granted, the metric he uses is not particularly meaningful considering the indiscriminate clicking (and grade inflation) that is a given on the Web. But for all of its flaws, it does give you a rough gauge of an institution's Twitter popularity.

To set the record straight, we've compiled our own list of some of the major SoCal art museums with active Twitter accounts and ranked them in descending order. It almost goes without saying: the numbers only represent a snapshot view (as of Thursday late afternoon) and they are in a constant state of fluctuation.

So add your grain of salt, and click through to see which SoCal art museums have the most followers on Twitter.... And while we're thinking about it, follow us on Twitter @culturemonster

-- David Ng

Exploring 'The Art of the Samurai' at Bowers Museum

Samurai warriors may be best known in the United States from movies and video games, but a more authentic and nuanced view of their legacy and culture is being presented in “The Art of the Samurai” at the Bowers Museum.

A warrior class, “samurai” means “those who serve in close attendance to nobility.” Though their status was initially low, during the Edo period (1603-1868), they began using weapons, grew more powerful and were elevated to a more refined social class. Their skill and focus is reflected in their sword making, which involves hammering metal thousands of times to make weapons known for their unique curvature.

Oceanic art on the rise

Suddenly, it seems, Oceanic art is a hot topic. And you don't have to look beyond Southern California to see what's catching the attention of collectors, curators and museum directors nationwide.

The San Diego Museum of Art recently opened "Oceanic Art: A Celebration of Form," a major exhibition of about 100 objects from the collections of Valerie Franklin and Edward and Mina Smith. The display includes figurative sculpture, masks, bark cloth, jewelry, baskets, ceramic containers, musical instruments, weapons and shields from the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.

As guest curator George Ellis says in my Sunday Arts & Books story, "This is not art for art's sake. This is art that serves religious purposes and societal needs in a very real way that, for me, gives it a soul. It speaks of people, their fears, hopes and aspirations -- the same concerns we have, but reflected in different forms. It's exciting, wonderful art from a part of the world that we know very little about."

But the mainstream art audience is learning about the historic art of Oceania -- the collective term for about 25,000 Pacific islands that are home to hundreds of artistic traditions. And more opportunities are coming soon.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art filled a big gap in its collection last summer with the purchase of 46 works of Oceanic art, to be installed in August. The Fowler Museum at UCLA and the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, which have quietly amassed large Oceanic holdings over the years, will present exhibitions of South Seas art in the next few months. And Long Beach is about to get a permanent showcase of Oceanic art. Conceived and endowed by the late Robert Gumbiner, who founded Long Beach's Museum of Latin American Art, the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum will open its doors this summer, across the street from MoLAA.

-- Suzanne Muchnic

Above: Oceanic artworks at the San Diego Museum of Art. Credit: Sean Masterson / For the Los Angeles Times

Monster Mash: Breaking news and headlines

-- Pacific Asia Museum and the Bowers Museum plan to cut staff and scale back exhibitions.

-- Financially troubled Pasadena Symphony restores a Beethoven program to its roster.

-- Two offer views on how to rescue the Museum of Contemporary Art: here and here.

-- Good news on Broadway: "The Seagull," starring Kristin Scott Thomas, and "All My Sons," with John Lithgow, Patrick Wilson and Katie Holmes, recoup their investment.

-- New York's Metropolitan Opera will hold a weekly drawing on its website, www.metopera.org, offering for $25 orchestra and grand tier seats that usually sell for $140 to $295.

-- Des Moines Register lays off its longtime editorial cartoonist Brian Duffy.

-- Warren M. Robbins, founder of the Museum of African Art, dies at 85.

Bowers and Pacific Asia Museum cut staff, pull back on exhibitions

More downbeat news from the arts-during-recession front:

The Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena and the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana are cutting their budgets --20% and 10%, respectively -- by laying off employees and canceling or delaying exhibitions. The Pacific Asia Museum also plans to hike its $7 admission fee -- it remains undecided whether by $1 or $2 -- and begin charging for lectures and workshops that previously were free.

The museums share an interest in Asian and Pacific Island culture (and both were raided in January as part of a federal investigation into alleged looting of ancient Ban Chiang artifacts that is ongoing, according to a Justice Department spokesman), although the Bowers is less specialized. Executive directors of both institutions said Friday that they are not caught in an immediate fiscal emergency but, foreseeing more bad economic weather ahead, are trying to trim their sails in hopes of keeping their budgets afloat.

"It's painful to let good people go and cut back programs, but my job and the trustees' is to look at the long-term health of the museum," said Joan Marshall, the Pacific Asia's director.  "We're a small regional museum, with a small cash reserve, and can't afford to find ourselves in a crisis like MOCA," she added, alluding to the long-building financial emergency at L.A.'s $21-million-a-year Museum of Contemporary Art, which had been spending down its reserves since 2001 before seeing a substantial chunk of what remained vanish in the recent market plunge.

Dudamel, globe-trotting arts collectors, a look at Africa and more ...

We've got Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan who will take over the Los Angeles Philharmonic next year, bringing youth and experience, exuberance and gravitas, along with an affinity for pop culture. It's just a few of the highlights in today's Arts & Books section of the Sunday Los Angeles Times. Here are some others:

• Miami is home to the globe-trotting Rubells, who are on ARTnews magazine's international list of the top 200 collectors. "Here" is Palm Springs, where they traveled for a special occasion — the launching of a relationship between the Florida-based collection and the Palm Springs Art Museum with the recently opened exhibition, “Against All Odds: Keith Haring in the Rubell Family Collection.”
• If anyone has seen way too much of these choreographed mega-costumes, it would be Stephen Daldry, the British director behind both the popular movie and the hit musical that's finally made its way to Broadway: "Billy Eliott: The Musical."
• Photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher have devoted 30 years and 12 books to the traditions, culture and people of Africa — a faraway land that they have brought closer to home by teaming with the Bowers Museum for the exhibit "Passages," currently on display.
• In the poor Venezuelan hillside neighborhood of Chapellín and at nearly 250 other locales in that country, thousands of young Venezuelans are learning to play classical music and to make art a permanent cornerstone of their lives. They're the latest recruits of El Sistema, or the System, a 34-year-old program that many regard as a model not only for music instruction but for helping children develop into productive, responsible citizens. Without a doubt, El Sistema's most illustrious graduate is Dudamel, the 27-year-old conductor who next September will take over as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Check out the video and photo gallery.

— Rene Lynch

Photo credit: Bebeto Matthews / Associated Press

Terra cotta warriors set Bowers Museum attendance record

Adios to the alert pair of archers, the stoical cavalryman and his horse, the impassive, sage-looking generals, the big-bellied, headless guy who's supposed to be some kind of entertainer or acrobat, and the rest of the gang. For a bunch of 2,200-year-olds pieced together from clay fragments, you looked marvelous.

The public evidently agreed: Officals at the Bowers Museum report today that "Terra Cotta Warriors: Guardians of China's First Emperor" had 209,797 visitors during a five-month run that ended Thursday, making it by far the hottest ticket in the Santa Ana museum's history. Actually, some 250,000 people saw the Egyptian mummies exhibit that shipped out six weeks before the Chinese warriors stepped in -- but they'd been on view for 2 1/2 years. "Terra Cotta" more than doubled the 100,000 who saw the previous limited-run record-setter, "Secret World of the Forbidden City," during its seven-month stay in 2000.

One thing about the Emperor Qin and his clay army -- theirs, with apologies to James Brown, was evidently a man's man's man's world: The exhibit offered not a single image of a woman or a girl among the main attractions and the accompanying artifacts sent by Chinese authorities. Unless we failed to notice that the horse was a mare.

The warriors haven't quite left the building: Packing is scheduled to continue for 10 days, then they'll be shipped off to their next stop, Atlanta's High Museum of Art, where the show will debut Nov. 16.

-- Mike Boehm

Photo: Visitors inspect terra cotta warrior head fragments at the Bowers Museum. The exhibition set an attendance record. Credit: Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times